to think the greatest of French novelists, writes her a charming letter about nuances.  ‘It seems to me,’ he says, ’that except when they read Shakespeare, Byron, or Sterne, no Englishman understands “nuances”; we adore them.  A fool says to a woman, “I love you”; the words mean nothing, he might as well say “Olli Batachor”; it is the nuance which gives force to the meaning.’  In 1839 Mrs. Austin writes to Victor Cousin:  ’I have seen young Gladstone, a distinguished Tory who wants to re-establish education based on the Church in quite a Catholic form’; and we find her corresponding with Mr. Gladstone on the subject of education.  ’If you are strong enough to provide motives and checks,’ she says to him, ’you may do two blessed acts—­reform your clergy and teach your people.  As it is, how few of them conceive what it is to teach a people’!  Mr. Gladstone replies at great length, and in many letters, from which we may quote this passage: 

You are for pressing and urging the people to their profit against their inclination:  so am I. You set little value upon all merely technical instruction, upon all that fails to touch the inner nature of man:  so do I. And here I find ground of union broad and deep-laid . . .

I more than doubt whether your idea, namely that of raising man to social sufficiency and morality, can be accomplished, except through the ancient religion of Christ; . . . or whether, the principles of eclecticism are legitimately applicable to the Gospel; or whether, if we find ourselves in a state of incapacity to work through the Church, we can remedy the defect by the adoption of principles contrary to hers . . .

But indeed I am most unfit to pursue the subject; private circumstances of no common interest are upon me, as I have become very recently engaged to Miss Glynne, and I hope your recollections will enable you in some degree to excuse me.

Lord Jeffrey has a very curious and suggestive letter on popular education, in which he denies, or at least doubts, the effect of this education on morals.  He, however, supports it on the ground ’that it will increase the enjoyment of individuals,’ which is certainly a very sensible claim.  Humboldt writes to her about an old Indian language which was preserved by a parrot, the tribe who spoke it having been exterminated, and about ‘young Darwin,’ who had just published his first book.  Here are some extracts from her own letters: 

I heard from Lord Lansdowne two or three days ago. . . .  I think he is ce que nous avons de mieux.  He wants only the energy that great ambition gives.  He says, ’We shall have a parliament of railway kings’ . . . what can be worse than that?—­The deification of money by a whole people.  As Lord Brougham says, we have no right to give ourselves pharisaical airs.  I must give you a story sent to me.  Mrs. Hudson, the railway queen, was shown a bust